Post-Door Hardwareism: The Starry Night Mural by David van Go-berg

Starry Night Mural by David Goldberg outside of Union Hardware in Bethesda, Maryland

If you’re adept at combining tongue-in-cheek humor with artistry that takes one of Vincent van Gogh’s key works into new, appealing and uncharted territory, then you’re okay by the Styleture editorial team.

Artist and Union Hardware owner David Goldberg

That’s exactly what “David van Go-berg” has done with the real Van Gogh’s Starry Night masterpiece, a Post-Impressionism painting from 1889, done on canvas with oil, which is now housed in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The piece features a night sky filled with swirling clouds, stars ablaze, and a bright crescent moon, all hovering over a quaint town. It’s one of the most well known images in modern culture, replicated in prints, but never replicated in a Post-Door Impressionistic style as it has been in the Starry Night Mural. This new rendering utilizes over 1,250 door knobs, levers, and back plates from Italy, Germany and the U.S. The background consists of PVC boards that the artist stained with PVC primer. All of the hardware for this creative repurpose is old, remnant, and has been salvaged and accumulated over the course of many years by specialty retailer, Union Hardware. This visionary and design-forward endeavor perhaps marks the first time such materials have ever been used in the art world.

Door hardware used in Starry Night

The mural draws a crowd outside Union Hardware

The Starry Night Mural installation is located outside of Union Hardware – a company in the business of selling decorative plumbing and hardware products since 1914 – located in Bethesda, Maryland. If you’re heading over to have a look, make sure to rub the Italian Chrome Leaver in the center of the swirl; according to folklore, you will then dine on a sumptuous pasta dinner.